1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to devices and systems to aid health care workers in determining areas of a patient's body that need particular attention to reduce unnecessary harm.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Hospital care for patients typically includes an intake procedure that, among other things, allows health care workers to determine whether or not a particular patient is what is considered “vulnerable.”
An example of a vulnerable patient is one that for one of many medical reasons, such as medical hardware implanted in the body or other complications from surgeries, cannot have certain portions of the body squeezed for blood pressure measurement or punctured through the insertion of needles. Some examples of conditions where puncture and pressure would be contraindicated are mastectomy patients (right, left bilateral), lymphedema, AV fistula, hardware (artificial implants), neurological damage, surgical site side and PICC line, among others.
Currently, hospital methods in place to determine and ascertain which patients are the vulnerable ones primarily include the use of verbal intakes. The patient informs the intake nurse or other health care worker of the condition and then the nurse puts a note on the person's bed. Often, however, this note is lost and once the patient is moved to another care center, the information is lost.
Putting pressure on or puncturing these individuals in these vulnerable places can lead to severe medical problems for the patients, including such extreme consequences as amputation. Besides catastrophic harm to a patient, the precariousness of the system also leaves hospitals and health care workers subject to legal liability for malpractice.
It is the object of the instant invention to provide a system and garment that would allow a visual determination of vulnerable portions on any given patient's body that should not pressured or punctured, therefore having the information visibly apparent and traveling along with the patient's person rather than their bed or chart.